(audience cheering) (applauding)
- Okay, enough about me.
Well before I speak to you,
I wanna hear from you, not about me, for you,
if you can shout, please, or sing, or sign,
I would like to hear that.
Shout! (audience cheers)
Sing!
Sign!
Pretend you're at the Annenberg Center and the curtain fell.
Pretend you're at the Palestra
and Kayla Padilla just sank a three pointer!
(audience cheers)
Come on, let's hear it! (audience cheering)
Come on! (audience applauding)
Okay.
Since I was a small child,
people have told me that my power is my voice,
and now I know, class of 2023,
we definitely have that in common.
Thank you, President Magill, Interim Provost Winkelstein,
board members, faculty members, staff members,
family members, fellow honorees,
thank you class of 2023. (audience cheers)
Graduates, in your short lives,
you have experienced recession and inflation,
pandemic and insurrection,
the rollback of Roe and the rise of Me Too,
a racial reckoning,
a climate crisis,
not to mention smart phones and streaming and social media,
the mapping of the human genome,
the miracles of modern medicine,
and that's to say nothing of what I'm sure
has been going on in here, and in here.
- [Audience Member] Woo!
(distant sirens wailing)
- In times like this, it can be really hard to know
when to use your voice, and how,
whether to yell or whisper,
to declare or to question,
to speak or to listen,
whether your words will be amplified or attacked,
or ignored all together,
and whether that even matters,
whether your anger is allowed,
whether your sadness is sensible,
whether your ideas are any good.
Even sitting here, you might feel that tension,
as you end something incredible
and start something unimaginable,
your heart, both aching and full.
(sighs) Graduates, I am here today with a single message,
don't hold back.
Harness any tension you feel and let your voice be heard.
- [Audience Member] Woo!
(audience cheers) (applauds)
- Today is May 15th, 2023,
20, 23, what's the cooler way to say that these days?
Does it matter?
20, 23, right?
Exactly 20 years ago, on May 15th, 2003,
I was actually in rehearsals,
preparing to take the stage in San Francisco
for the world premier of "Wicked,"
and- (audience cheers)
Let me tell you,
getting the role of Elphaba was not a given.
At one audition early on,
the creative team asked me to sing the song,
"Defying Gravity," and,
ask any Penn player here today-
- [Audience Member] Yeah!
- And they'll tell you it's an incredible song
with an incredibly high note at the end.
So I practiced and I practiced,
and when I stood in front of the director and the producers,
I really thought I was ready,
but just as I went to hit that note, kinda goes like,
♪ So if you care to find me, look to the Western sky ♪
♪ And (mutters lyrics) ♪
Now I'm forgetting the words a bit.
(audience laughs)
♪ And nobody in all (muttering lyrics) ♪
♪ Is ever gonna bring me ♪
And I went, ♪ Bring me (voice cracks)
(audience cheers)
And I cracked.
I was so mad at myself, I shouted, loudly,
profanely and loudly.
And I fought the instinct to run,
(sighs) and then I took a deep breath
and I looked at the accompanist,
and I said, "We're gonna do that again."
And then I nailed it and I hit that note.
(audience cheers) (applauds)
Look, we're all human, even you, class of 2023.
With your world-class education
and your relentless determination,
your business might struggle,
your experiment might falter,
your voice might crack,
some of you, like me, might express your anger,
some of you might shut down.
Feel whatever you feel,
all that you feel, and then keep going.
A few years after that audition,
the director of "Wicked," Joe Mantello,
that he knew I was right for the part
in the moments after I missed the note
because grit won him over,
and that other four letter word sealed the deal.
(audience laughs) (clears throat)
He said, "That's what made me seem wicked."
While, perfection is elusive,
humanity is certain,
and it will get you where you want to go,
where you need to be.
I performed "Wicked" eight shows a week for years.
I hit that high note in "Defying Gravity"
more times than I can count,
and my voice cracked a few times too.
A performer's life is in some ways a life of repetition,
of saying the same words again and again,
of singing the same tune again and again.
How many of you have sung or heard your siblings sing
a certain Disney song again and again,
I apologize for that.
(clears throat) (audience laughs)
I'm gonna let you in on a little secret,
(chuckles) I really don't mind repeating myself.
In fact, I love repeating myself.
After all, I'm an actor, I like to hear myself talk.
I like the attention.
No really, I love repeating myself
because I am grateful for the opportunity to use my voice.
Because when I repeat myself,
I open myself up to trying new riffs on the melody
and finding new meaning in the lyrics
and finding new ways to connect with the material
and the audience.
A few years ago, as President Magill said,
I was in Pittsburgh.
It was just a couple weeks after the Tree of Life shooting.
I was doing a concert and I was conflicted because
I knew the members of the audience would be mourning,
just as I was,
and all Jewish people were,
and all good people everywhere were.
And so I lit a candle on stage
and I sang a song that I had sung thousands of times before,
a song from "Rent," called "No Day But Today."
♪ There's only now ♪
♪ There's only here ♪
♪ Give in to love or live in fear ♪
(audience cheers)
No no no no, those words took on new meaning that day.
There are educators among you
who will teach the same history lessons year after year.
What new meaning might you find in the present circumstance?
There are economists who will look at the same market trends
over and over.
What vision for the future might challenge you?
I'm not worried about the jazz musicians,
you know how to improvise,
or the marching band members,
you know how to beat the drum.
(audience cheers) (speaker laughs)
Yes, I hear you.
But the rest of you, what will you do
when you have to repeat yourself?
What will you do when you have to persist?
Which brings me to my final point,
you graduates contain multitudes, as a group, yes,
but also as individuals.
Don't ever forget that.
Our world is obsessed with labels,
with binaries, with fitting everyone
and everything into boxes,
the truth is, you are more than one thing,
you are more than many things, you are everything.
Now, I wanna be clear, I'm not asking you to do it all,
and I'm certainly not promising you can have it all,
but I am asking you to live the fullness of who you are,
play every role you were put on this Earth to play.
Class of 2023, if the bard is correct
and all the world's a stage,
today you step out onto it.
You have rehearsed for four long years,
or maybe five, or maybe six,
or even longer for the graduate students.
Between us,
the production process always takes longer than you think.
But now you're here.
You know all your lines.
You are ready to play your part.
And still, nothing is ever perfectly scripted,
you may have to ad lib
because it turns out that the world is more experimental
than traditional.
It's more dissonant than harmonious.
It's more off, off Broadway than Broadway,
if you get my drift.
So as you step into the spotlight,
no one's gonna blame you for a bit of stage fright,
but I'd ask you from one performer to another-
- [Audience Member] Woo!
- Please don't let that stop you.
Channel your emotion into determination.
Find exhilaration in the repetition,
and put all of yourself into this role of a lifetime,
this role of your lifetime.
(sighs) Class of 2023, as you proved at the very start,
we all have a voice.
Inside each of us, there are lengths of ligament
and muscle and tissue,
and when those cords are brought together,
and air flows over them,
the tension creates vibration,
and when you harness that tension,
you can sigh deeply or speak out loudly,
you can even sing.
♪ And when the night is cloudy ♪
♪ There is still a light that shines on me ♪
♪ Shine until tomorrow, let it be ♪
(audience cheers)
♪ I wake up to the sound of music ♪
♪ Mother Mary comes to me ♪
♪ Speaking words of wisdom, let it be ♪
♪ Let it be, let it be ♪
♪ Whisper words of wisdom, let it be ♪
(audience cheering) (applauding)
Let your voice be heard!
Congratulations class of 2023, thank you!
(audience cheering) (applauding)